WIP Whenever~!
Oh hey it's actually Wednesday already!
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I'm tagging the similarly fantastic: @paraparadigm, @polypolymorph, @changelingsandothernonsense, @thana-topsy, @thequeenofthewinter, @dirty-bosmer, @wildhexe, @expended-sleeper, @throughtrialbyfire, @elfinismsarts, @rainpebble3, @saltymaplesyrup, @gilgamish, @tallmatcha, @archangelsunited, @snippetsrus, @miraakulous-cloud-district, @nuwanders and YOU. Yes you. Please absolutely consider yourself tagged and tag me back if you post!
Here's a snip of chapter 30 of The World on Our Shoulders. Some of you may have seen versions of this before :> More soggy emotions, because, of course. OF COURSE.
Teldryn buried his face in his hands and Geldis squeezed his shoulder. He let the silence wash over him — not that it was actually silent. The crowd left him anonymous, another sad fool alone at a bar, which, to be honest, was for the best.
“She doesn’t want me here, either. She wants to go home, back to just…everything she had before. Even after what we’ve survived. Even after realizing what we are,” Teldryn said. He picked at the sweetroll again, crumbling it onto the plate. “She doesn’t owe me anything, of course. I was the s’wit who thought for half a second the feeling was mutual. And clearly, I was wrong.”
“Did you ask?” Geldis asked. Teldryn glared at his friend.
“Oh, I don’t know, Geldis. Did I ask my married friend if she lo — ” He paused and cleared his throat. “No, I didn’t ask her.” He sighed heavily again and crossed his arms over his chest, mind filled with the iciness of the distance she’d put between them, even after everything. A whole northern sea, dark waves to drag him under and everything. He’d added to it, too, not innocent at all in the endeavor. He shivered. “I didn’t have to.”
“You’re an idiot, Teldryn Sero, that’s what you are,” Geldis said evenly and put up a hand to prevent him from protesting this. “You’re gonna carry this around until it tears you apart instead of resolving it — just like a hundred other issues I’ve seen you struggle through. And you know what? It is, in the end, up to you to make the changes instead of cozying up in the corner over there deep in your cups, becoming another mess I’ve got to clean up.” He leaned in and shook Teldryn’s shoulder. “Even if it’s a no, it doesn’t mean this is the end of the world. But clear the air, for Gods’ sakes. And let her go if that’s what she wants. Plenty of fish in the sea, no matter what you believe about fate and other nonsense.”
Fate and other nonsense indeed.
He didn’t say anything at first. Geldis understood part of this, in his way, but not the entire story. Not the echo. Not the gravity of the situation Nyenna was about to face. Teldryn had lost someone he’d loved before due to the trappings — or failings — of heroism, watching across a vast expanse of sand as the earth quaked under his feet, leagues away from the damage. The Red Year, not long after he’d chosen to leave everything behind. A whole life he’d refused, a whole person he could have been instead of…this. He was no stranger to wrong choices and the urge to simply…run away. To put it all behind you and keep going. From an ultimatum or a destiny, it didn’t matter — the cause was the same. Guilt, fear, grief, and a deep unshakable conviction that you are simply not good enough. And have never been.
Sometimes she visited him in his nightmares, the one he’d left for the job in Elsweyr. She was still so clear in his head, almost two hundred years later, like he had only just turned from her offer of peace. When the horrors faded and left room for regret, he felt the memory of her hands held tight in his like the ghost of a missing limb. Every so often, he swore he could still smell the light scent of her coda flower perfume, her own recipe mixed with sweetbarrel blossoms and the spice of juniper. There was never a time back then when his mind hadn’t been occupied with feeling stuck, so why did she still torture him like this? It was as if she served as a haunting reminder of what could happen the second he let himself be seen. It would all be gone from him in a flash, and then what?
He did not deserve peace. Not then, not now. Part of him was still convinced all of this chaos with Nyenna was just another extraction of debt due to one God or the next for that specific misstep. Sometimes he could go years without remembering. Years soaked in Sujamma, true, but years nevertheless. But then, times like these? Given the chance to start over, it seemed he never quite could. Or perhaps he was never quite worthy. He both wanted to walk away and couldn’t.
Geldis was right in a way. Maybe if he cleared the air, then he could go and prevent another disaster. Or try. And then it could be the same as it’d always been. Square one. And Nyenna would fade from his memory, same as the rest, eventually, no matter how long it took. He had eternity, anyway. It would be better this way. Hurt less, if he was lucky, if he could find the words to begin with.
Sure. You keep telling yourself that, you s’wit.
He wanted another Sujamma, but he knew it would do him no good. He took the sweetroll that he hadn’t crumbled to nothing and bit into it like an apple. There were things to do to prepare for the trip to Skyrim. Geldis would have to accept the subject change. He wasn’t going to bring up things that had been done with long before Geldis was even born.
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Sentences Someday
(Or Short Snippet Someday. Or Six-Sentence Sunday.) (I have no concept of time or titles.)
Tagged by the amazing @throughtrialbyfire!
Tagging @paraparadigm, @changelingsandothernonsense, @thana-topsy, @thequeenofthewinter, @gilgamish, @archangelsunited, @polypolymorph, @kookaburra1701, @dirty-bosmer, @wildhexe, @orfeoarte and @miraakulous-cloud-district!! And you. Yes. Your tag is invisible, but still there. Tag me back so I can read!
Here is a tiny snippet from Chapter 29 of The World on Our Shoulders. (Soggy with Emotions!Teldryn again.)
Small cw for reflection on past alcohol/substance abuse.
Teldryn sighed, a headache blooming from grinding his teeth as he allowed the stress to continue building in his neck and jaw. The thing was, [drinking] never really did fix a single thing. Or he wouldn’t keep ending up back at square one, never able to move forward and never able to turn back time no matter how hard he tried. Turning his brain into a mazte-soaked rag would not actually fix the root of the problem. Problems, really. He’d lost count of exactly how many over the last handful of decades. Centuries. Geldis would have the number, though.
He stared down at his hands. Gods, he wanted to change. He had been right there at the precipice, that day in the Netch when he’d told the truth about who he was and [Nyenna had] accepted him for it. Sobbed about it, if he remembered right. Because she realized she wasn’t actually alone, and, for once, neither was he. He could have a purpose. But, like a s’wit, he’d fallen in —
Nope.
He felt the fracture as he shoved the word down again. It would not do to keep dwelling. But the cracks were letting all the water out. It was so exhausting to be this empty, this hollow. That, and it was getting hard to see past it all, to figure out if he could let whatever this was settle into something resembling normal again.
It’s never been normal, and you know it.
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